Various client software applications provide for automatic updates, using an updater. The updater may be built into the application, run as a separate application, or may be part of the OS. These software updates are important, as they provide various bug fixes and security protection mechanisms and ensure that the functionality and security of the software application is up to date and accurate. However, the client software application updates may fail for a variety of reasons.
Possible reasons that updates may not occur include proxies and firewalls (e.g., in protected environments such as corporate/enterprise environments), OS/platform issues or configuration, updates to the OS/platform/firewall, connection failure, the updater not being installed properly, a disabled updater, the auto-update request not being received or being ignored, a failure to detect an update, and/or scheduler failure. Where the application is unable to connect to the updater or the application and/or the updater are unable to connect to the update server, it is difficult to determine if an update is available. This may put the user in an insecure state where critical security vulnerabilities remain un-patched and the user sees no new bug fixes or enhancements. To ensure that the user is made aware of the possibility of such risks, it may be desirable to detect an updater failure and alert the user when such failure is detected.